C Subramaniam Awards for Community Leaders 2021

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C Subramaniam Awards for Community Leaders 2021

The National Foundation for India has instituted awards for voluntary sector workers and community leaders in memory of Bharat Ratna Shri C.Subramaniam, Founder Chairperson of NFI.

In 2021, NFI has awarded 15 committed community leaders from the manual scavenging community and those helping to organise sanitation workers across India. Through these awards, NFI plans to cover community leaders across all states of India and also planning to increase the number of awards next year.

Location

Dharam Das

Dharam Das started his career as a scavenger and through struggle liberated himself from the restrictions he faced. He is now leading the manual scavenging and sanitation workers’ community in six districts in Jharkhand.

Ranchi, Jharkhand

Jyoti Balmiki

Jyoti Balmiki from Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, saw her mother go to do her daily manual scavenging work. At times, with a book to read, she followed her mother to work. Therefore, from the age of five, Jyoti has been a Safai Karmachari Women rights activist, focusing on rural districts of Madhya Pradesh in central India.

Sagar, Madhya Pradesh

Kishan Gopal

Kishan Gopal has worked since ten years as a community leader of the scavenging and sanitation workers communities.

Farukhabad, Uttar Pradesh

Meenu

As a liberated woman scavenger, she organizes women from the community in National Community Region. “I worked for years lifting waste. After coming into the movement, I left the work and motivated women in my neighbourhood to move into other livelihoods, working to get them access to e-rickshaws or other means through Safai Karamachari Andolan,” states Meenu. She is instrumental for many women’s liberation from manual scavenging in her work since two decades.

Nandnagri, Delhi

Nisha Sarwan

She is active in organizing safai Karmacahri youth in Gumla, an interior forested district in Jharkhand, and is organizing youth associations among the manual scavenging community.

Gumla, Jharkhand

Pammi

Pammis is a women rights’ rights activist, instrumental in bringing many girls from the community out of scavenging, enabling girls to focus on education and other livelihood streams.

Shahbad, Haryana

Pawan Nakawal

Pawan Nakawal, Jaipur (Rajasthan), works as a senior leader of the community. He has led surveys to identify manual scavengers in 21 districts of Rajasthan to work towards eradication of manual scavenging. He aims to build community leaders and improving access to education for Dalit workers in around Jaipur.

Jaipur, Rajasthan

Poonam

Poonam from Roorkie, Uttarakhand is a youth activist who started her engagement with the sanitation workers’ community in Dehradun in 2010 where her mother did manual scavenging work. She has led surveys to identify 2200 scavengers in Uttarakhand and organised 6000 workers in the region.

Roorkie, Uttarakhand

Poonam Tushamad

Poonam Tushamad, Delhi is an Ambedkarite activist, apoet, writer, scholar, and a strong voice against patriarchy and caste in the scavenging community. She has a Phd and has published articles and is an author of two books and two poetry volumes on caste and gender inequalities.